The Art of Community

When I first came to ÀNI Art Academies, I simply wanted to learn how to draw and paint. I had no idea how much of my life would eventually grow around the studio. Over the years, the studio became more than a place I went to work. I met people who became close friends, worked alongside artists from very different backgrounds, and built relationships that continued long after our time working beside one another. When I think about community now, I think about those people.

Some of my earliest memories at ÀNI include working alongside Dan Christian, who is now Dean of ÀNI Art Academies Thailand. Dan was already working through the painting curriculum when I began, and his guidance was invaluable as I worked through my early exercises and eventually my first drawing. Having someone beside me willing to help as I began something completely new made a lasting impression. Today, it makes me happy to see where Dan’s own artistic pursuits have taken him.

Other relationships developed over time. I spent years working alongside Juana and Francisco Collado as fellow apprentices. Today, they are teachers at ÀNI Art Academies Dominicana, but for a long time we were simply people working beside one another, pursuing our own development. Those years gave us opportunities to talk about much more than art. We came to understand one another’s lives and goals, where we came from, and where we hoped to go. The studio gave us a common starting point, but our friendships grew beyond it. That has happened with many people I’ve met through ÀNI. When you spend enough time with people, sharing successes, frustrations, questions, jokes, and the ordinary events of everyday life, the studio inevitably becomes more than a room containing easels and drawing boards.

My relationship with Anthony Waichulis has evolved as well. Anthony was initially my mentor, but after years of working together, that relationship has come to mean much more to me. And something else happened that I probably couldn’t have imagined when I was struggling through those first exercises beside Dan: I now mentor apprentices of my own.

There is something meaningful to me about that progression. I remember being the person sitting there with questions. I remember others taking the time to explain something, demonstrate something, or simply help me work through a problem. Now I sometimes find myself on the other side of that interaction. And it doesn’t stop with ÀNI. As I began producing and sharing more of my own artwork, my interactions with other artists expanded far beyond the studio. I started communicating with artists from different states and countries, many of whom have no connection to ÀNI. People contact me with questions about the materials I use or how I approached a particular part of a drawing or painting. Those questions often turn into conversations, and those conversations introduce me to still more artists. What I find remarkable is how much of it traces back to the studio.

Before becoming part of this community, I thought of the “art world” as something distant: galleries, museums, publications, famous artists, and institutions. Today, it feels much more personal. The art world I know is Dan helping a new apprentice through an exercise. It is years spent working beside Juana and Francisco, Anthony mentoring me and, later, finding myself mentoring others. It is a message from an artist hundreds or thousands of miles away and discovering that, despite the distance, we have something to share.

Artmaking itself can be remarkably solitary. We can spend countless hours focused on a drawing or painting, dealing with problems that exist within a few inches of a surface. Yet somehow that solitary activity has connected me with more people than I ever expected. This is what I value most about the community I have found. These relationships have allowed me to see people develop over time. Someone who once worked beside me is now teaching on the other side of the world. Fellow apprentices have become teachers. A mentor has become one of the most important people in my life. And I have gone from asking for help with my first exercises to being someone other artists now approach with their own questions.

None of those roles are fixed as we all continue learning from one another. Today I may share what I have learned with another artist. Tomorrow, I may be the one asking the question. That exchange is what the art community has come to mean to me. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have been enriched by the people I’ve encountered through art. Some have been beside me for years while others I may know only through conversations across a great distance. But each relationship has expanded what began when I first walked into ÀNI Art Academies and took my place in the studio.

I went there to learn how to make art. I didn’t realize how many people I would meet along the way. It started at the studio. But it definitely didn’t stay there.